Don’t create more rules, Priti – just enforce them

Setting out his nine principles of policing that underpinned the creation of the Metropolitan force in 1829, the home secretary Sir Robert Peel wrote that ‘the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them’. But those wise words are lost on today’s busy politicians who seem to measure their effectiveness by how many new burdens they impose on the justice system.

In a culture where headline-grabbing gestures count for more than genuine accomplishments, the knee-jerk response to almost every major new criminal incident is to demand a change in the law. Priti Patel, the inheritor of Sir Robert’s mantle as home secretary, is the prime exemplar. She cannot witness a crisis without reaching for the statute book. When the shrill protestors of Extinction Rebellion caused mayhem in London and at two newspaper printworks last week, she announced that she would look ‘at every opportunity available, including primary legislation’ to deal with environmental extremism.